“Sure, I have no idea what you did there,” she sing-songs and flashes me a smile.
There’s nothing malicious about Lara. She put me at ease immediately. I think it helps that she’s new to Dogwood Ridge as well, though she’s been here longer than me.
Still, she can’t resist talking about her daughter. I can’t really blame her.
I let myself imagine, for just a moment, if I really could have a family of my own. Sylvester used my desire to have kids against me. What he didn’t seem to understand is that I never wanted to have kids with him.
He’d be a terrible father, and I’d be a monster to put a baby into an abusive situation.
But, then again, if he was really determined, he would have forced the issue.
He thought he was breaking me by dangling the carrot of kids, of a real family, in front of me. There were a lot of ways he brokeme down, promising me kids when it was the last thing I wanted with him, was a miscalculation on his part.
“She’s great,” Lara’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts and I almost thank her. I hate thinking about him. But the memories are hard to escape. “She’s ready for the school year to be over.”
“Is she still nervous about middle school next year? Not that I blame her,” I add on and make a face. “I would never want to go back to those years. There’s too much puberty going on.”
Even though I say it with complete seriousness, Lara cracks up. “Thereistoo much puberty,” she agrees, her voice filled with amusement. “She’s feeling better about it after her class visited the school and got a tour. Then there was a family night where the principal and vice principals introduced themselves while trying to instill some school spirit early.”
I try not to grimace because I know what they’re doing is best for the kids. They’re trying to give them a chance to get a little more comfortable with the idea of a new place.
But that sounds awful.
“That sounds interesting. I’m glad it helped her feel better about everything.” I manage to keep my voice even and not give away how I actually feel about it.
Putting on that act, the one I used to survive Sylvester, is getting harder to slip into. I thrived in the gray area, where neutrality and not showing emotion meant I might avoid the pain.
Lara barks out a laugh as I finish rolling out the dough and get ready to fill and roll it up. “It was incredibly boring,” Lara admits, her voice a whisper while glancing toward the doorleading to the stairwell up to the apartment, as if Vanessa is going to jump through it as a gotcha.
I can’t help but giggle. Vanessa doesn’t have to be up for a while. She’s not thrilled about getting up with her alarm already. There’s no way she’d wake up even earlier.
“I think you’re safe,” I tease her.
“Maybe,” she grumbles, “but she probably still heard me. It’s her superpower.”
“I thought it was the moms who were supposed to have superhuman hearing. And have eyes in the back of their head.” I shrug with my words; my mom didn’t care enough to have eyes in the back of her head when it came to me.
Not that I did anything bad to get her attention. I was too busy trying to get it by being perfect.
Fat lot of good it did me.
What I got was isolation, pain, and broken promises.
I had a few years of freedom after leaving my parent’s house and heading off to college. While I was proud when I graduated, my parents didn’t care. Then they introduced me to Sylvester.
The longer I’m in the bakery’s kitchen, the more relaxed I become. The shadows who had chased me into my dreams and then into the day before the dawn, have receded slightly.
Not completely.
I don’t believe I’ll ever live without those shadows.
Now I realize they were always there. I just couldn’t see them before. I could be lost in them, swallowed up until I’m twisted up in pain.
What chat while we bake with synchronized steps which come from days of learning each other. My heart is light by the time Vanessa slips through the door with her backpack slung over her shoulder.
Lara glances at her and blows out a breath which makes a tendril of her hair flutter. She’s just finishing up scooping out a tray of cookies. I already know it’ll be the last of the dough in the bowl. We have the timing down just right.
“Yes,” Vanessa whines, “I brushed my teeth and my hair. I did the whole morning routine.”